What's your top NHS waste pet hate?

Submitted by Kim Esslemont on Fri, 26/10/2018 - 16:53

The Room 101 session at the PCRS national respiratory conference touched such a raw nerve with delegates when they were asked what their top waste issue was that we have decided to extend our poll to the wider membership.

GP Dr Katherine Hickman told the conference that her pet hate was spirometry in primary care; Lay Reference Group member, Amanda Roberts, said her bugbear was the annual asthma check-up; respiratory nurse consultant Vikki Knowles said hers were the NICE asthma guidelines and physiotherapist Kelly Redden-Rowley declared that she objected to pulmonary rehabilitation at four weeks referral.

Delegates consigned the NICE guidelines to oblivion in Room 101, a location whose name is inspired by the torture room in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four.

In a poll the audience said their pet hates were:

Unnecessary repeated appointments for patients to get a diagnosis

Single use items in the respiratory clinic such as volumatics which can be easily and safely cleaned

Blanket inhaler changes to save costs without informing me or having any knowledge of my patients

Where patients are ‘script switched’ on to another inhaler without being brought in/phoned up to discuss the change

Full spirometry for stable, known COPD patients

Restrictive inhaler formularies

Repeat prescriptions of standby medications being dispensed on repeat although not ordered by the patient.